S1Ep2: Motivation & The Great Tapestry

In this episode, Grooveline founder Will Bennett talks about the importance of understanding the true motivation behind musical education and shares some actionable steps that parents can take to best support their child's musical journey. Will discusses the challenges of maintaining motivation when learning an instrument and highlights the distinction between motivation and productivity. He introduces the concept of music education as a 'great tapestry', each stitch representing a lesson or technique, which over time, assembles into a bigger picture. Applying these insights to children's music education, parents are encouraged to understand the underlying motivations and rewards of these tasks. Will also highlights the continuing support that tutors can provide and encourages parents to communicate with the tutor to better understand the learning process.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to another episode of Heard It Through The Grooveline. My name is Will Bennett and I'm the founder of Grooveline Music Education. I'm here to help you know how to best support the musical education of your child, even if you are not musical yourself.  At Grooveline, when the lesson ends, the learning doesn't stop.

And so as part of our wraparound approach to music education, This episode, we will be discussing ways to keep your child motivated and the great tapestry of music education. 

Hi, you guys. Nice to be here again with you and share this time with you. I just want it to quickly, first of all, say thank you to everyone who listened to the first episode. To tell you the truth. I actually launched it by accident.  I was trying to figure out how I could. Upload the podcast onto various platforms. 

And I was planning to schedule it for a few weeks time. I could spend some time marketing or letting people know about it. But I realized in order to actually link it with Spotify, you had to have at least one episode published. And so I clicked a button and accidentally. It was immediate down Spotify. 

So I thought, oh, let's just go for it. I presume that is,  why people have episode zero. I've seen that before. And I think I understand now why people do that? But nevermind. So we've got another episode today this is episode two and I'm really excited to share this with you i think it's going to be a good one

 So today I want to talk about motivation. When you are studying an instrument, motivation is something that. Comes and goes, , learning an instrument can be a journey of many years and it can take a long time. To get really good. And at various points, your motivation will go up and will go down. I'm sure you know this anyway throughout life and throughout your own work, but children that are learning music don't necessarily know this yet. 

And so I want to talk and share some thoughts with you today about my own opinions on motivation. And then I want to give you some actionable steps that you can take to apply this to your own children.  The first thing I want to say is that. Hopefully, physically playing the instrument is really fun and that is its own motivation. That's the initial idea. And I think most of the time that is true. However, sometimes it can be hard. It can be hard to make progress. I think inherently the very nature of learning an instrument. 

It's something that you want to get better at.  Maybe you can just enjoy playing football, kicking around with your friends. You don't have a need to get better at that. You're enjoying it. Anyway. I think oftentimes we approach London instrument as something that. In order to continue doing, getting continue, enjoying it. 

We want to improve. And really that improvement is often. The source of enjoyment itself. The only problem is the better you get the harder it is to have those breakthroughs and the harder it is to get better. And it can be a bit longer in between periods , of progress there or what feels like progress. So motivation does come into it at some point. 

There's a, there's a big distinction between motivation and productivity. And I think this is important. So being motivated and being productive and not the same thing. You can be one without the other, you know, I could be motivated.  But for whatever reason, I didn't do anything that was productive or I could be very productive, even though I  have no motivation. You know, just doing a list of chores, it's productive. 

I had no motivation to do it, but I did it because I had no choice.  It's important to, first of all, make that distinction to understand the point that I want to make today.  I think that what's really important is to understand. What's your motivation. Behind doing something is.  nOw you may say, yeah, I'm motivated to I don't know, complete this chore. Because I need to have a clean house and it's like, okay, that's not actually really the answer. 

You're just kind of explaining the purpose of it. But actually the motivation is why do you want to clean house? It makes me feel something. It makes me feel relaxed or whatever it may be. So that's your real motivation, the thing behind it. That's your true motivation.  It may be that you're doing something because you want to grow because you want to create, because you want to learn. You want to improve or you want to discover, or any of these kinds of things. 

That's your real answer. And that's your real motivation. So why, why do you go to an art class? Is it because you want to create a painting?  It's probably not. Literally as simple as that. That's the purpose of the going to the art class, but really it's maybe because you wanted de-stress or you want to enjoy yourself. You want to meet new people. 

You want to be creative and feel in a certain Headspace that you were being creative. That's probably your true motivation.  By understanding our real motivation.  We can redefine what it means to be productive because productivity is not just complete in a list of tasks anymore. 

It's acknowledging the effects of these tasks. And it's these effects that will become our source of motivation.  

One thing that you often hear people say is trust the process. I don't like that. I think that, you know, oh, I don't want to practice my guitar today. I'll trust the process, keep practicing. That's not really helpful if the person who is meant to be trusted in that process, doesn't really understand where that's going to lead. 

And you just blindly trusting a process because. Someone else has told you about this process. I think that's ineffective. I think that if you understand the process yourself and the learner understands the process, Then it's a lot easier. So what I always think about is that music education. And you can apply this to anything in life, really, but it's like the great tapestry. . And each little thing you learn is one stitch in this tapestry.  Every little lesson, every little technique. Is one small stitch. And that stitch on its own.  Eh, Canfield pointless, and maybe it feels boring. , Especially if you're doing something very technical. You're working on a real small technique and the average listener can't really hear the difference. 

And it's going to be months that you have to work on this before. You can really notice something that can feel boring and mundane. 

I think if you can understand how that small stitch, that small thing you're working on adds up to this great tapestry. This great, bigger picture. Then I think that can help keep you motivated, especially if. As we spoke about earlier, you understand that this great tapestry is not about a thing. It's not about achieving a certain., tangible technique or a grade. 

It's not about that. It's about the.  True motivation, the creativity, the progress, the development, those true motivations behind creating this great tapestry. 

So.  How can we apply any of this to our children's music education? I'm  certainly not recommending that you speak to your children in the way that we've spoken today. And have a kind of philosophical, intellectual, long conversation about this. I don't think that's going to be the effective way to do it. But what I do think is that now that we've spoken and you can. Imagine this kind of picture of the great tapestry. Discuss with them a big picture and it doesn't need to be a formal sit-down chat, but just mention something. , it's in, it's in your comments and your mentions and your wordings that we can really allow the children.  To go on their journey. 

They need to go on their own journey, but they can be guided along that journey in a positive way. Based on the things that you can do and the environment you create at home. 

So, for example, you could say. A little comment, like, wow, all that practice is really paying off. And soon you're going to be able to do X play, that song that you've been asking about or perform in assembly. Like, like you've kept saying that you wanted to, or.  Study for a great exam. What. Ever, it may be that they're working on at the moment and the thing that they are excited about. 

And you can do that without necessarily explicitly explaining things to them. You just basically sowing the seeds of an understanding. That small tasks can add up to big rewards. And these small single stitches can become the great tapestry.  The other thing you can do as an actual step is just to gain a bit of understanding. 

And of course, You are doing that by listening to this podcast. So thank you for that. But also just have a chat with their tutor. You know, whether it's a Grooveline tutor or maybe someone's listening to this who is not a Grooveline client and you've got different teachers from different services. Ask the tutor, what are they learning at the moment and why? 

What's the point? How does this add up to actually something. How does this add up to the great tapestry? If you like, you know And hopefully the teacher should be able to explain that and they should be teaching your child something with a purpose. I know from experience  when I was younger, And also from speaking to other people, sometimes teachers don't know the answer. They really should. Good teachers know that answer all the time. But there's a lot of teachers who don't know that answer. 

So you ask them. And, and, and you might learn. whAt their intentions are and what the point of each lesson and each skill is.  So you could ask your child a question. Have you learned any new chords or techniques lately? What does that mean? What is a hammer off? What is a bar chord?  What does it mean when you do a paradiddle and you can ask them and let them explain it to you? But here's the good bit you ask them. 

What does that allow you to do?  What does that mean? You're now able to do that. You couldn't do before. How will this add up to something that they actually are excited about?  So does that mean that you're gonna be able to play. Your favorite ACDC song now using that technique? Or okay. So does that mean that you're going to be able to pass the grade two is because I know you're excited about that or whatever it may be. 

Okay. You can ask your child that and if your child doesn't know the answer, ask your tutor. Hopefully your tutor is kind of communicating a little bit with Your child about that as well, but you know, it's perfectly fine to us that you, to these questions. And I think actually good tutors will be happy when you ask that, that question. 

I'm. Whenever a parent asks me something like that. I'm pleased because I know that means I've taken an interest. I know that means there's support in that child at home. And they want them to do well. You know, so it's never really. Rude to ask that kind of question to your tutor. 





And as I said earlier, you know, learning instrument is, is really about going on a journey. 

And it's not just about getting better at that instrument. That's not the purpose of learning an instrument. There's so many wider benefits to learn in an instrument it's about actually getting better at learning.  You need to actually get better at self-awareness. You need to learn discipline. You need to be great at motivating yourself. 

And it really shapes a person. And how, how cool is it that you're given that opportunity to your child? So that's awesome. So thank you for that. Your child is going to be shaped by their music education. I know that I was completely, I mean, You know, I've taken it to a more extreme example than other people may, because I really decided to dedicate my life to it. 

I went to university to do music. I became a musician obviously now. I've got a music education business, and the podcast. So not everyone's going to take it to this extreme. Some people may take it to further extremes. But either way, your child is going to go on that journey and they're going to be shaped. By them music education, even if they don't realize it. So it's pretty awesome, actually. 

And it's really important. And that's again, why I'm so passionate about music, education, why? I think it's so important that it's done correctly. And that's part of the reason behind this podcast is that as well as it being a great tapestry, I think there's a lot of things that need to fall into place in order to make. Music education successful. 

You need to have a great shooter. You need to have opportunities. The child itself needs to want to do it needs to have an environment to do it. But one piece of the jigsaw, which is missing, which I think a lot of people are missing out is that. It's what we're doing right now, helping the parents understand how they can influence their child, because I know that you want your best for your child. And that's why you're listening to this, but I also know that sometimes parents don't actually know how to do that and that they ask me. How can I best support, you know, how can I do this? 

And that's the purpose and reason behind this podcast? It wasn't my idea really. It's just because I kept getting asked the same question and then I realized there's nothing out there. I searched the internet and there's really not much that is aimed at helping the parent to help their child. And that's, that's why we're doing this podcast.  And the good thing is you don't need to be a musician to do any of these things but i think it helps For you guys to know from a teacher's perspective  what the big plan is. You know what is the big picture and by understanding that you can better help your own child it doesn't require a massive upheaval I'm not asking you to do anything drastic it's just understanding these small tips these little comments you can make conversations you can have wording you can use that will allow your child to go on that journey and be guided along that journey in a beneficial way

  Thank you for listening to another episode of Heard It Through The Groove Line, the podcast that helps parents like you best support your children's musical education, even if you are not musical yourself.  To find out more you can follow us on social media and don't forget to hit like and subscribe.